A blog by Rex Huston: Runner, Speaker, Bad Programmer

05/18/2010

Improvise and Save

Necessity who is the mother of invention - Plato

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them. - Henry Ford

I had a problem. There was not a single cup holder in my car. This may seem like a trivial problem to some, but try steering, changing gears, and holding a hot cup of coffee all at the same time. I drive a very small early 1990's Japanese sports car. Apparently at the time the great people at Nissan Motors thought cup holders were not that important to their customers. If there was one thing American car companies had right, it was putting in at least 2 cup holders per passenger in each vehicle. But I digress, I had a problem and I needed a solution.

Option A would be to buy one of those cup holders you can hang on the door. This was not a very good solution as I am 6'1 so I barely fit in the car as is. I would be bumping into that cup holder all the time and most likely knocking over the drink.

Option B would be to buy a new car. This seems a little drastic, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Which option did I choose? Neither! I put my thinking cap on and created a solution. A picture of it is below:

Yes that is exactly what it looks like: A disposable drink tray carved up to fit into my armrest console. It is fully functional, the lid still closes and everything. I even scotch guarded the thing in case I ever had the need of an iced drink. Cardboard and condensation don't mix well.

We all have little problems like this that bother us and no matter how trivial they seam to others, they are big to us. For me it was a vehicle lacking cup holders, for you it is probably something completely different. Instead of solving these problems, most people turn to one of two things: complaining or consuming. The answer however may be right in front of you in the form of a free drink tray, all we need to do is use a little imagination.